[ gavel ] good afternoon everybody and welcome to the San Francisco board of supervisors meeting of march 22nd, 2016. Madam clerk, please call the roll. Thank you, madam president. Supervisor avalos. Supervisor avalos . Avalos present. President breed . Here. Breed present. Campos present. Supervisor cohen. Present. Cohen present. Supervisor farrell not present. Supervisor kim . Kim present. Supervisor mar. Here. Mar present, supervisor peskin present. Tang present. Supervisor wiener . Wiener present. Supervisor yee . Yee present, madam president you have a quorum. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, please join us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Madam clerk, are there any communications . Yes, madam president. From supervisor farrell, dated march 8th, requesting that he be excused from todays meet colleagues, is there a motion to excuse supervisor faler . Motion by supervisor avalos, seconded by supervisor cohen, colleagues can we take this without objection . Without objection, supervisor farrell is excused. [ gavel ] all right. Madam clerk, please call the first item . Item no. 1 is the consideration of the mayors veto pursuant to charter section 2. 106. Of an ordinance amending the planning code to increase the Transportation Sustainability fee for nonresidential projects. This ordinance was approved by the board on march 1st, and vetoed on march 11, 2016. The question before the board is shall the mayors veto be overridden and the ordinance finally passed . The yesvote overrides mayors vote and novote sustains the mayors vote. This action requires twothirds vote, eight affirmative votes despite the absence of a member. Supervisor avalos. I will start with a quote from franklyn roosevelt, test of our progress is rather we add more to the abudance of those who have enough, but to provide enough for had those who are little . Before us today is the choice to support those who have much, Big Developers, or those who have little, the working people of San Francisco. As we come to the conclusion of the effort on the Transportation Sustainability fee, i want to thank all of the many people who worked to create this measure, that is before us today. The Planning Department, and the Planning Commission, the sfmta, the train Providers Union and Equity Coalition and i would like to thank by ladies and gentlemen ive aid jeremy pollack for his tireless work on this version of the Transportation Sustainability fee. This veto underscores the economic bias of mayor ed lee, a bias that favors the wealthy at the expense of work people. Mayor lee has you to thed his reputation to bring people together, however this veto calls into question the mayors consensus approach. I would dual at the end of the concessions approach, get a bunch of people in the room and stack it with the rich and powerful and force the less powerful to make concessions. In the end the working people get less and end up paying more out their own personal pocketbooks for basic city services. The concessions approach, brought us a lower inclusionarylevel in the Housing Trust fund, a lowerlevel that were now trying to fix and gave us tepid gross receipts tax that left millions on the table for Tech Companies to pick up and you now the tsf. When muni has an enorthrop grumman backlog of deferred maintenance, 10 billion deferred backlog as identified by the process, it makes no sense that the city concedes and leaves money on the table for Big Developers to pick up. The tsf that passed in december was not a consensus measure. , it was a measure that in december 7 members of this body voted as inadequate and it make stronger. The 7 voted to bank the revenue from the inadequate tsf and send a stronger measure to committee for approval in accordance with our board rules. The media especially the chronicle has completely blocked out the content of this stronger measure and reported the veto as some sort of political game rather than an effort to give developers a break or to increase revenue for the shortfall in our Transportation System. One of our members called the inadequate tsf fair. I asked again fair to whom . Notice to the riders of muni who face inadequate funding and knot to the workers of muni, who have to contend with less and certainly not to the taxpayers that foot the bill that sub disses of rich and powerful developers are getting. There has been a long public process of the measure before us today and most noteworthy is the Planning Commission meeting where commissioners unanimously supported all of the amendments i recommended before them, and approved and Even Stronger measure than the one that is before us today. I also brought all of these amendments up at multiple board of supervisors land use and Transportation Committee and here at the board of supervisors. Despite the mayors claim of consensus, with the extension of one letter from the chamber of commerce, i have not heard from a Single Person who is opposed to this measure before us today. So why the blockout and why the veto . This measure charges 2 per square foot for commercial developments over 100,000 square feet. 2 more. Up to 21 a square foot. For commercial property that is in the pipeline, but not yet received entitlement from the Planning Commission and also grandfathers in a new fee set at half the difference between the old tidf and tsf. This before us today raises 2 million annually and 30 million in onetime funds with our enormous Transportation Needs and huge demands on transit, San Francisco cannot afford to turn this money down. Adding to the wealth of the wealthy is no why to promote development, nor fulfill our Transportation Needs. I urge you colleagues to support this measure and be fair to the people of San Francisco, the taxpayers, the muni riders and workers and not just to the rich and powerful developers. Thank you, supervisor avalos. Supervisor wiener. Thank you very much, madam president ill be voting to sustain the veto based on merchant years of work that went into crafting an excellent Transportation Sustainability fee and did it in a broadbased collaborative way that will significantly benefit our Transportation System over time. I want to commend supervisor avalos for that. I thought it was just a really barnburner speech that if you didnt know anything about what has land happened todate, you might say wow how could i make a different position . The problem with the comments that we just heard frankly completely ignores everything that went before. The Transportation Sustainability fee is not a new thing that just materialized out of thin air. For years and years five years for me, and i know there was work even before i got involved, we had been working to take our Transportation ImpactDevelopment Fee that has been on the books for 35 years, and to bring it into 21st century to have Developers Pay significantly more and that is exactly what we did. When you look at what the tif d the item that was passed by this board last yeah, takes the annual contribution of developers to our Transportation System from 26 million, a year. To 45 million a year. It almost doubled what developers will pay per year into our Transportation System, nearly a 20 million increase. That tsf, that 20 million increasing, the near doubling the Transportation Sustainability fee was achieved because what we did for the First Time Ever in 35 years we extended Transportation Impact fees to be Residential Development. Residential development for 35 years did not pay a penny under our Transportation ImpactDevelopment Fees and we fixed that by including Residential Development for the first time. In addition under what we passed late last year, we significantly increased what commercial development had to pay compared to what they had previously paid and not only did we increase it, we increased it in what was initially introduced and supervisor cohen and i in committee increased it onn commercial development yet again. So for years we worked on this. We came out with an excellent product that will produce almost 20 million a year more than what they were paying otherwise. So to suggest that anyone, the mayor or members of this board of supervisors are trying to cut developers a break, frankly is ridiculous. Developers are going to pay almost 20 million a year more than they would have otherwise for a total of approximately 45 million a year in Transportation ImpactDevelopment Fees, paid for by developers. To say that if you are not in favor of increasing it from 45 million to 47 a year, you are somehow not supporting working people and you are siding with the 1 is absolutely specious and political game and that is what this is really about. We took a gigantic step forward putting legislation together in the way that you should put it together and we passed it and its done. At some point the legislative process ends and you move forward with implementation. Anyone can always take the position its not enough and that developers should pay more, but what we did was a gigantic step forward. What is being proposed today, frankly, is very, very small. Its not going to accomplish anything, but i do understand it makes for good political theater. I will be supporting the veto today. Thank you, supervisor wiener. Supervisor mar. Thank you. I wanted to respond to a few of the points that supervisor wiener made ands will thank supervisor avalos and vision zero and protransportation coalition for standing up to override the mayors veto. Its 2. 4 million a year that would go into a better Transit System and 30 million in onetime revenue. I dont think that is a little amount. Though we need much more. But i think this is about equity and its about requiring the Largest Developers to pay their fair share as supervisor avalos mentioned. So i urge my colleagues to join supervisor avalos and myself and others to override mayor lees unfortunate vetov this task force measure. Thank you. Thank you, supervisor mar. Supervisor campos. Thank you, madam president and with all due respect to my colleagues, who will be voting to sustain this veto, the argument that is being made by these developers is sort of what happened with airbnb. It took airbnb so many years to pay its back taxes, and it was so used to not playing by the rules for so long that when it finally followed the rules, it was actually boosting about that. In this case, these developers are not used to paying nothing for so long that when they are paying an amount, even if its a small amount relative to what they should be paying they somehow think they are giving their they doing us a favor. Lets be clear here, it is a giveaway to Big Developers and it so happens in this case , people say, at one point legislative process those end. Why is it that the legislative process has to end when it actually benefits developers . How about stopping the legislative process when it gets to the point of actually helping real people, regular people . That is what we are saying. You know, they may argue all they want, but at the end of the day, they are giving a big giveaway to development community. Thank you, supervisor campos. Supervisor kim. Just want to speak in support of supervisor avalos amendments to the Transportation Sustainability fee. This has been a longterm discussion and, in fact all of these amendments were before the Planning Commission and, in fact they supported more tiered Fee Structure for how we do transportation fees for particularly our commercial buildings and our residential, depending on size. We know that those who build larger projects not only have a larger impact on our Transit System, they can also usually afford to pay more. This is modest change, but more fair change not just for the every day residents of San Francisco, but developers as well. Each project is not equal and it makes sense that we tier our fee as the projects get larger he you pay a little bit more. As you create more jobs and put more workers in the downtown area, you pay a little bit more to help support our Transit System. Over the last couple of weeks we have been having conversations about what is the most appropriate Revenue Source for funding Public Transit . And this board agreed that one of the ways to do that was not a flat fee on tow away charges that can change anywhere from 600 800 that really impoverished lowincome and workingclass households and residents in the city. We worked with sfmta to reduce the fees and acknowledging there would be a hole in the budget when we took that Revenue Source away. Now the more appropriate Revenue Source for funding our public Transit System is a progressive tiered fee. This is one of those options and alternates. We can ask for developers who can give more to our public Transit System and certainly a lot more than our workingclass residents that get slapped with a 600800 tow away charge for one singular mistake and yet this board is now going to stay they cant support a slight increase in the Transportation Sustainability fee. I think that this is an important policy question for this board to continue to tackle . There there are ways that are not as regressive to continue to invest in our Transit System and members have said they would introduce a set aside or supplemental appropriation if of which i think we all agree is right thing to do. I think this is one of those appropriate Revenue Sources to help continue to support our rich and welldeveloped public Transit System. So i will be voting to support supervisor avalos amendments today. Thank you, supervisor kim. Supervisor avalos. Thank you. Just to continue my political theater, i actually agree with supervisor wiener. There has been a great deal of work on creating a new tsf and i would say that supervisor wiener has done a lot of work only that. And i do appreciate his movement to build a new framework for the tsf. We needed that new framework because we left a lot of money on the table compared compared to what we have in place now. By not approving the tsf and that was something that was really important to me. We developed a framework for the tsf, but how we settled on a fee that is anemic compared to what it could be with this measure is something beyond me . I dont know how we got to settle on the fee that we have today . We had discussion in committee to raise the fee. There were votes in committee to do that and the votes kept it in committee to be the lower fee until we actually made this new improved version before us today. We had six members of the board of supervisors who supported that is the majority who supported this higher fee, which will raise 2 million a year and 30 million in onetime funds. That to me says there are many ways that we could have crafted the fee beyond the framework that we put together over the years. So this framework, this fee that we have before us today, means that we approve it, and override this veto, were saying to the taxpayers you will not have to subsidize the Transportation Impacts of Big Development. That is the final vote we have today. By sustaining the veto, you are saying to the taxpayers, its you who have to pay for the impacts of Big Development and not the developers themselves. That is the clear choice that is before us today. Thank you, supervisor avalos. Supervisor wiener. Thank you. You know, i just and supervisor avalos, we actually work well together on a lot of transportation issues and i know we will, we just have a real disagreement on this one. To suggest that the tsf is telling developers that they dont have to pay is just not consistent with the facts. Developers are going to pay 45 million a year under the tsf, 19 million a more year than they would have paid. We almost doubled what developers have to pay. We extended it the first time to residential and increased it repeatedly on commercial. So if someone wants to argue that we need to that there is some sort of meaningful difference between 45 million a